Today, I rush to the window that looks out to the park, checking if there're people out. Sadly there are.
I text Forest that I'm not going to run and that if he wants to meet me, to go to the library. My mind, for some reason, brought me back to yesterday on the park.
Shit, I think. I forgot to mention Rayne.
My phone vibrates with a text back from him.
I'll go to the library.
I text back a great. I found a granny smith apple and eat it on the way to the library. My eyes bulge out when I see Rayne by my locker. It was only her. I ignore her and unlock my locker.
"What's up with you?" She asks.
"What do you mean?" I ask back after she doesn't leave.
"You really want to be Forest's rebound girl?"
"What are you talking about?" I question, emptying my backpack and refilling it with my "2nd half of the day" things.
"Stop playing dumb with me. I've seen you with Forest several times. I'm just trying to save you. You know he's a player. He's been a player since 5th grade."
I slam my locker shut and immediately lock it. Heading to the library, she stops me by grabbing my backpack.
"Okay," I say. "What do you want? If you want Forest, then take him." I choke on my own words. "I don't care." My hand involuntarily spreads out. "We are not together. We are just friends."
She smirks but immediately pulls it down. "I don't want him. I just... want him and me to be better friends than before."
"Oh, fuck up. Everyone knows that you want to fuck him. Everyone." All I want is for her to be mad, aggravated, annoyed.
"I. Do. Not!" She shrieks with the highest pitch that probably caused a crack on glass way back to the Titanic.
People from all classes rush to the situation. Since Rayne's still holding my backpack, I pretend to be the weak one. My hands are placed on my head, covering my face.
"What's happening here?" My homeroom teacher, Mr. Remmuld, with his big bulging nerves on his nose popping out, loudly questions.
Rayne examines her place in the problem, with her Asian-Mexican eyes wide, drops my backpack. I stumble to the ground and wince.
"Well?" Mr. Remmuld demands.
"She--" Rayne starts with a point at me.
Someone holds my elbow, helping me up. There's leather, again. I see leather.
Cam looks me in the eye as he helps me up.
The whole universe become quiet as I stare back at him. So he's not offended by yesterday? Apparently not. The noises come back with his voice filling my ears.
"Are you okay?" He's worried, I can see. He looks over me for anything that might hurt.
"Yeah," I assure him, with a smile. "Thanks."
Forest steals me and assures me, also.
"Yeah, I'm fine." He hugs me tight like I'm injured. "She didn't hurt me or anything."
"She better not have," they say, unexpectedly, together.
---
"What happened, Ms. Vera? With you and Ms. Pond, I mean." Mr. Scillon, our main principal, asks.
"I didn't do anything!" She defends.
"Ms. Vera! Please calm down and tell me the truth. I have examined the security camera video. You seem to have bothered Ms. Pond, who was probably on her way to class."
"It's her lunch period!" Rayne rises from her seat.
"And what about you? Is it your lunch or free period?" She sits back down. "Exactly. And what class are you going to?"
"Ms. Sanson," she pouts.
"And you, Ms. Pond? What class?"
"It's my lunch period, but I just preferred to go to the library to read."
"With an apple?"
"I was eating it on the way."
"Ms. Vera, why did you grab Ms. Pond by her backpack?" He turns from me to Rayne. She stays silent. "Well?"
"She was insulting me!" She gestures to me.
"Ms. Pond?" He tries to clarify.
"I was not."
"Then what, then, Ms. Pond, did you do to Ms. Vera to make her mad?"
"I was telling the truth." And that's the truth.
"What truth?"
"She wants kids with Forest Michaels," I say.
"I do not! You do. You guys are secretly doing it!" Rayne is beautiful, to be honest. She can be one of the prettiest, skinniest, most athletic juniors. Her personality, though, is so, may I say, ratchet. Cruel to those people too "ugly" to be on her social class.
"Oh," I say calmly, "so you stalk me and Forest? I should really acquire a restraining order."
"Yes, Ms. Vera. How would you know that Ms. Pond and Mr. Michaels are... having intimate time with each other in bed?" Mr. Scillon locks his fingers.
"I-I don't. I just assume--"
"You assume?" Mr. Scillon quirks an eyebrow. "What about you, Miss Pond? How do you know that Miss Vera 'wants kids' with Forest Michaels?"
"I overheard--not eavesdrop, overheard--in the locker room that she would love to get Forest from me. I don't even know what she's talking about. Four and I are just classmates." I try to not get Rittiny involved. Though, I did a terrible job of keeping Forest out of it. Hopefully supreme principal here takes my word for it.
"So, you two are fighting for a boy?" Scillon checks.
"I'm not," I defend. "She is."
"Well, if that's the deal... Please stop acting immature."
"I'm not acting immature! She is!" Rayne stands up, pointing to me, nearly hitting my face.
"I'm not."
"Yes, you are." She turns to me and I expect a slap. But she didn't.
"Who's being immature now?" I cross my arms, my head straight, my eyes looking at hers.
"Ughhh!!" I know she's pissed. I love it.
Mr. Scillon yells. "Ms. Vera, sit down and stop yelling!" The bell for 5th period rings but he keeps us.
"Mr. Scillon, should we go?" I ask.
"No. We are staying here to resolute this problem of yours. Now, Ms. Vera, why did you go by Ms. Pond's locker?"
"I wanted to talk to this fuck-up bitch."
"Ms. Vera! Do not use those words inside my office! And do not call names!" He calms down. "Ms. Pond, is this true?"
"Yes. It is." I'm not that mean. I just really want her to leave me alone but don't want her to get so mad at me that she presses crucial buttons.
I look at her. She has a "did she really say that?" look, but not the disgusted one. The surprised, happy-ish one.
That's it, though. The interrogation ends with a "yes it is".
He dismisses us, giving Rayne afterschool detention and 2 day suspension for, I think, invading personal space and bullying (the backpack incident, calling name).
--
"Stop!" I yell. He's on top of me, trying to kill me.
"Why should I?" His little smirk is so beautiful.
"Because my side hurts!" Usually, only my older brother can tickle me. Then I realized Forest can, too.
One week after the locker "incident" and, after track, everything is joyous and ticklish.
He stops tickling me and kisses my stomach. "There. I kissed your booboo. Fine?"
"My lip hurts, too. Can you kiss it?" It's a cheesy trick, but, hey. Life is cheesy all over. Like velveeta cheese. Yum.
"Is wittle baby huwt?" He baby talks. He kisses me and we lay down together on the blanket. Apparently, his parents own a patch of land that they don't even bother to use. It's remote and isolated and beautiful.
"So... um... Last week, Rittiny said she knows about us and I think Josh does, too. Rittiny overheard Rayne tell her posé about how... she, uh, wants you and would love to ruin my rep. just to get to you..." Forest lets out a laughing sigh.
"Do I really have that effect on people?" Him taking this lightly slightly angers me.
"Really?" I exclaim. He looks sideways at me.
"I'm just kidding. It's fine, babe." He kisses me and then slips his hand under my gray muscle shirt.
"I just really wish that this'll make me feel better," I whisper between kisses.
He reaches for my bra hook and unhooks it. I back up, holding my bra still.
"I'm sorry," he says. It seems sincere, so I let it go.
"I forgive. It's fine..." I lay back down to notice the pretty cumulous clouds.
"Beautiful." His hand is locked and resting on his stomach.
"Yeah, I'd instagram this." I take my phone out and place it on the most perfect lighting, which is only one.
"No," he says before I snap a shot. He grabs my wrist and adjusts my placing. He makes it so that it's right in front of my face. "Okay, there." Then I snap a shot. Though, not before he stops me. "Smile," he says and I do.
Why? I think. Then, in fast motion, switches the vision to profile mode and snaps a shot.
"You know I'm deleting that."
"Eh, or add a filter to it, give it that white backy thingy and post it to instagram. Viola! Selfie!" He extends his arms to emphasize 'selfie'.
"Uhh, no." I correct him. "You mean 'digital self portrait'?" He looks at me weirdly. "My clique is a very thinky, clever clique." We have a small quiet break.
"So," he changes subject. "What did you mean," he forms a smirk, "when we were kissing," then pulls it down. "You said you wish that it'll make you feel better."
"It's not important." I put my phone down after snaping a photo of the sky.
"Elle," he lands his palm open on my stomach, "nothing in life is unimportant. I've seen Father's Day on Doctor Who. One death can affect millions. Billions."
With his mini speech, the main thing that popped out was the fact that he watches Doctor Who. And all fangirls would fangirl about another person entering their fandom. Especially if it's their crush.
"Other than this unimportant thing." He kisses me again, almost immediately after my statement. This one is not normal. His legs are between mine and he pulls in my head closer, yet not too rough.
There are some salty tears that fall into the kiss. I don't feel tears on my cheeks. My eyes open and I realize that he's crying. I've never seen a man cry before. Never in the real life.
"I know," he wipes his tears, "that we probably kiss, like, every minute when we're together..." He sniffles. "But, your lips... so... soft and lovely and makes life feel like heaven. It's the only thing that makes me feel happy." I think he reads my face, that says, "popular people get sad?", so he continues. "Yes... no matter how glad we, popular people, seem, there is always depression around."
"You don't need to worry. I... I was just thinking about when you leave. How I can feel better without you." I keep most of my tears from falling, though the couple that fell are noticed by him.
He wraps his hand around my waist and pulls me in.
"No... you will always be fine, with or without me." He tucks some of my hair strands behind my right ear.
"Let's just hope."
"How was your birthday, by the way?" Then I remember the Manny Pacquiao vs. Bradley fight and how Manny won.
"Manny Pacquiao won. And I bought a Great Gatsby and a Twenty One Pilots shirt from Hot Topic. Then my family went to FYE and I bought a 3-d Doctor Who tin poster. It's nice." I'm seventeen now and older than him. Well, 24 days older.
"What're you doing for your birthday? Isn't it soon?" I ask.
"Yeah. I have this game. That's it."
"Well," I try to cheer him up, "I hope you'll have a fun day."
"So do I."
---
"Are you wearing pink?" Dysney asks, obsessively.
"Yeah." I show her my shirt. It's a Dork Diaries shirt given to me by Mharic on Christmas of freshman year for secret Santa.
"On Wednesday we wear pink!" She shouts so that the whole school hears.
"Rittiny's not wearing pink," I point out.
"You can't sit with us!" She shrieks like Gretchen Wieners from Mean Girls.
"No," Rittiny defends, showing us her pink hair tie wrapped around her wrist.
Dysney obsesses about wearing pink and people who didn't wear pink couldn't sit with us. Mrs. Dubois warns her because of her loudness.
We, three, could tell that Mrs. Dubois hates Dysney and favors the popular kids. That's what I hate about her.
Ms. Donnell didn't bother to make up my previous detention. I ask her if I can make it up (I don't want to not get punished for my misbehavior) but says ro forget about it.
"We're going to have a ten day experiment soon," she alerts us. "You have to partner up with someone of opposite gender." That's when I look at Trent. He's my guy best friend since 3rd grade, when I first came here from the Philippines. Dysney and him are frenemies. Trent is your usual white sports jock and feels like no rules are to be followed by him. My friends hate when he's mean, and so do I, but to me, he's still my man bestie.
He looks back at me and we already know we're partners. We don't have any relationship between us other than friends so it's never awkward when we partner up.
.
Lunch arrives and I don't bother to be alone, so I volunteer to be with my friends. Granny Smith apples are the only thing that I could ever want so I take one.
"Nile! Your not wearing pink! Neither are you"--Dysney points at Josh--"or you"--then to Naitan.
"I'm wearing pink," Josh says, opening his jacket to reveal a pink polo.
They rant all about pink and the latest gossip as I fall asleep.
"Hey," Addym shakes me, "are you okay?"
"Yeah." I fold my glasses close and place it beside me. "Just tired."
"Okay," Mharic says, "we'll wake you up when the bell rings."
Then I drift off to sleep...
----Heey....
I'm really for the worsening plot hur...I really try, though. Vote? It really helps me. Telling me if u like dis book, so far. Thanks for reading :).
~♡